The Transat - New IMOCA 60 Hardware Will Soon Be On Show
Sat, 17 Apr 2004

While the ORMA 60ft multihull class sole new boat will be Yves Parlier's radical catamaran, Médiatis Région Aquitaine, visitors to Plymouth prior to the 31st May start of The Transat will have more new hardware to see among the IMOCA monohulls.

Last week Jean le Cam's new Bonduelle was launched. One of only two people to have ever won the Solitaire du Figaro three times, le Cam has been campaigning a trimaran under the colours of his French tinned food manufacturer sponsor for the last three seasons. As a break from this he is competing in the Vendée Globe this November.

The new Bonduelle is one of two Open 60 sisterships to be constructed at JMV Industries in Cherbourg, the birthplace of other boats in The Transat such as Conrad Humphreys' HELLOMOTO and Charles Hedrich's Objectif 3. Bonduelle's sistership is to the new Sill of Roland Jourdain.

Designed by Marc Lombard the boats are an evolution of Jourdain's previous Sill (now Alex Thomson's AT Racing) and look dramatically different. Like the old Sill, they are fitted with a canting keel and a rotating wingmast but have a number of new features such as a chine (a hard edge) along the aft quarters of the hull and along the entirety of the deck. The deck design shows a marked difference with a smaller cockpit located further aft and a smaller cabintop. Their twin rudders are hung off the transom so that in the event of one being broken during a collision, it can be replaced with relative ease. Bonduelle will make her maiden voyage next week while the new Sill is due for launch within in the next two weeks. Both boats are due to take part in the 1000 Milles de Calais race starting on 9 May.

Another brand new boat in The Transat will be Artforms, the Owen Clarke designed Open 50 of American Kip Stone, a smaller version of Mike Golding's new Ecover and Mike Sanderson's Pindar AlphaGraphics. This will also have a canting keel, but a more conservative classic mast set-up. Currently Stone is delivering his boat back from Australia and is currently just to the south of the Azores. Stone's main competition and fellow American, Joe Harris, has announced this week that his boat is to be sponsored by commercial real estate group Wells Fargo.

Meanwhile, the qualifications continue. At present, only 10 of the 39 official entries so far have completed the single-handed qualification passage they must sail before they become an official entry in The Transat (1000 miles for the ORMA boats and 750 for other classes). This week Sergio Tacchini, Geant and Banque Covefi completed their 1000 mile qualifiers while Marc Guillemot on Gitana X, Mike Golding on Ecover and Roger Langevin on Branec III are due to depart imminently. The qualification deadline is end of April, excluding boats that competed in the 2003 Defi Atlantique or Transat Jacques Vabre who have the deadline extended to 15th May.

SIXTH EDITION : 1980

The 1980 OSTAR held a very different complexion compared to the race four years earlier. The upcry from the yachting establishment over the participation of Alain Colas' 236ft long 'ship' Club Mediterranée had nearly caused the race to be banned but a compromise was reached when the Royal Western Yacht Club imposed a 56ft maximum length limit. The new rules were not welcomed in France where many competitors chose to boycott the race in favour of a new single-handed transatlantic race, the Route du Rhum that would take place in 1982. However some notables chose to boycott the boycott, including round the world sailor Olivier de Kersauson and future America's Cup skipper Marc Pajot - he raced as an unofficial entry on Eric Tabarly new tri-foiler Paul Ricard (Tabarly was injured and unable to take part, whilst Pajot's entry was classified as unofficial as their qualifier had not been completed in time).

The race also saw for the first time the introduction of vessel 'tracking'. Each boat was fitted with an ARGOS beacon, which in theory could be interrogated by satellite providing the race organisers, media and general public with a bird's eye view of how the race was unfolding - a vast improvement over the sporadic position reporting that had taken place in previous races. However, this technology being in its infancy, many of the units suffered technical problems resulting in boats 'disappearing' during this race. Today, ARGOS is much more reliable and Collecte Localisation Satellite (CLS), a Technical Partner to The Transat, will be installing ARGOS MAR YX beacons to all the competing boats. Also, the boats primary use of a satellite communications device called Inmarsat C allows the boats to be tracked for the duration. Each C terminal is connected to a GPS allowing the race organisers or shore teams to 'poll' it from land, downloading not only the exact position accurate to a few metres but also the boat's course, speed and all manner of other data.

The 1980 OSTAR was the last race to be won by a 'Corinthian' entry. The winner was the popular American publisher Phil Weld aboard his 51ft trimaran Moxie, setting a new course record of just under 18 days.